It is at this point that somebody crawls out of bed, slips into a
dressing-gown, passes through the swing door at the end of the ward
and sets the bath-water running. The sound of it is ecstatic.

Very soon others follow his example. They're chaps without legs, with
an arm gone, a hand gone, back wounds, stomach wounds, holes in the
head. They start chaffing one another. There's no hint of tragedy. A
gale of laughter sweeps the ward from end to end. An Anzac captain is
called on for a speech. I discover that he is our professional comic
man and is called on to make speeches twenty times a day. They always
start with, "Gentlemen, I will say this--" and end with a flourish in
praise of Australia. Soon the ward is made perilous by wheel-chairs,
in which unskilful pilots steer themselves out into the green
adventure of the garden. Birds are singing out there; the guns had
done for the birds in the places where we came from. Through open
doors we can see the glow of flowers, dew-laden and sparkling, lazily
unfolding their petals in the early sun.

When the sister's back is turned, a one-legged officer nips out of bed
and hops like a crow to the gramophone. The song that follows is a
favourite. Curious that it should be, for it paints a dream which to
many of these mutilated men--Canadians, Australians, South Africans,
Imperials--will have to remain only a dream, so long as life
lasts. Girls don't marry fellows without arms and legs--at least they
didn't in peace days before the world became heroic. As the gramophone
commences to sing, heads on pillows hum the air and fingers tap in
time on the sheets. It's a peculiarly childish song for men who have
seen what they have seen and done what they have done, to be so fond
of. Here's the way it runs:--